Ubuntu’s Shuttleworth bets on Inktank for cloud storage services

Cloud storage services startup Inktank today announced that Mark Shuttleworth, the entrepeneur behind Ubuntu Linux and the first African in space, has invested a million dollars in the company. Inktank provides support and services to enterprises who want to deploy the Ceph open source distributed file system, which is designed to run spread out across multiple servers—like the arms of a cephalopod.

For companies looking to establish data warehouses or get into the business of large-scale data analytics, part of the barrier to entry is getting a storage system which can grow massive while remaining responsive at scale. It's relatively easy to store a terabyte or two of data on a single hard disk drive, but it's much more complex to store dozens or hundreds (or even thousands) of terabytes distributed between many different servers, with each server understanding its place in the whole, and with the entire cluster behaving as a unified file system. There are several large open source distributed file systems which fit the bill, including the popular GlusterFS, but Ceph is notable for already being integrated into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS as well as for its use in OpenStack, the service behind Ubuntu's private cloud offering.

Shuttleworth's investment in Inktank, whose services help companies set up their own Ceph-based storage clouds, is a strong vote of confidence by a notable industry mogul. "The distinctive architecture of Ceph gives it natural advantages over both proprietary and open source competitors," said Shuttleworth in Inktank's statement. "I'm also delighted to support the team behind Ceph in their goal of building a commercial success story around this tremendous technology, as an investor in Inktank."

Though the investment isn't an enormous one as such things go, Shuttleworth clearly has his eye on the technology. "Today Ceph is in the Linux kernel and Ubuntu," he said, following that with, "soon it will be everywhere."

Promoted Comments

I'm actually involved with the development of this thing, kind of interesting to see it mentioned in the news.

This is mainly for people who have thousands of storage machines in a data center, and want to use them all as one distributed, redundant filesystem.

deet is right, it sits at the top of the pile, on top of another file system (XFS usually, btrfs when it's ready). It's not like typical RAID; instead of parity data, you get RAID-1 style mirroring, with several copies of any given chunk of data automatically distributed around the nodes. The whole system is actually aware of how your data center is laid out, and you can give it rules like "every file gets mirrored twice, with each copy going on a different rack" and it magically all works out. That way you never lose a server/rack/row and find out that all copies of a given chunk happened to be there.

You can put different kinds of gateways in front of it, depending on how you use the data. There's one that implements Amazon's S3 protocol so you can be compatible with software that uses that (or sell your own S3 storage). Or you can mount a ceph filesystem on a linux machine and just use it like you would an NFS filesystem.

6 posts | registered Jan 16, 2012

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

Just wondering (since this isn't my area by any stretch) but is there any concern over the head of Ubuntu (and presumably someone helping steer the development) having a conflict of interest? What if the other options do turn out to be better/more stable/more functional? Will he be able to remain independent on the topic? Just wondering-with the boards of Apple and Microsoft and Google, I expect that, but the philosophies behind Linux/Open source seem like they might end up being more at odds. Then again, I'm sure Torvalds is making plenty of money doing one thing or another that might be similarly conflicted for some people.

People still actually use Ubuntu post 12.04 release?? ಠ_ಠ I wish you all luck, but I had to cut that cord. Mint w/ Cinnamon has taken over where Ubuntu 10.04 left off.

The server version is still pretty nice. 12.04 is a Long-Term Support release so people will be using it for a while. It's also the first release with officially-supported Xen (host and guest) and Hyper-V (guest) drivers.

People still actually use Ubuntu post 12.04 release?? ಠ_ಠ I wish you all luck, but I had to cut that cord. Mint w/ Cinnamon has taken over where Ubuntu 10.04 left off.

Not really any problems with my install, which is 12.04 with the Lubuntu base and Xfce 4.10 on top. Nobody's tying you to Unity for anything, and that's just considering it as a desktop Linux rather than for servers (where it's rapidly picking up marketshare).

I use Ubuntu 12.04 as my primary OS, but I have to question, just a little bit, why Ceph is built in to Ubuntu? I totally understand supporting it, and having integrated server support, however for a release focused on end-users? I just don't see your typical Ubuntu user having to use it. I think it would make a great add-on... just not a built-in thing, at least for now.

People still actually use Ubuntu post 12.04 release?? ಠ_ಠ I wish you all luck, but I had to cut that cord. Mint w/ Cinnamon has taken over where Ubuntu 10.04 left off.

Not really any problems with my install, which is 12.04 with the Lubuntu base and Xfce 4.10 on top. Nobody's tying you to Unity for anything, and that's just considering it as a desktop Linux rather than for servers (where it's rapidly picking up marketshare).

I mean I support the variation of Linux distros available and that is one of the great things about it - I didn't like it anymore so I was able to find something else that I DO like. I guess it was more a suggestion for other desktop users who have had issues with Ubuntu. I tried Gnome3 on it and still had constant problems with it crashing and other strange anomalies that I haven't had with any previous version of Ubuntu. Some people really like the Unity UI, but personally I think it disrupts my ability to quickly navigate around and I was generally fighting it more than just using it as I wanted. A few years ago I had tried Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my netbook and found that I had the same poor experience with that as I did with 12.04 Unity. Mint has become my new standard desktop version, but I still use Ubuntu server edition (12.04) with no problems.

ok that was crap lost what i was posting make it little shorter i guess

ok ubuntu seems like maybe windows 8,

i tried ubuntu an number of times the updater seems very good at breaking it self, the upgrader/installer was bit of an fail if you let it see the Internet and the download server was under very heavy load as it would stall and fail (as you have to reboot the pc)

other issues are commands that are bit long winded overly complicated for what they need to be (could with been simplified, as some times seems you need to be an programmer to use the commands)

10-15 or more years ago once they got GUI installer i thought it would of got better but seems the same as then (worse with ubuntu as it seems to represent windows 8) but way better hardware support now

see if the post button works this time (using opera Turbo on an quite an slow mobile data link) or it seems there is an time limit before it does not accept as i had to press reload to allow me to post this

People still actually use Ubuntu post 12.04 release?? ಠ_ಠ I wish you all luck, but I had to cut that cord. Mint w/ Cinnamon has taken over where Ubuntu 10.04 left off.

I had my concerns when I made the switch from the Gnome 2 based desktop in 10.04 to Unity in 12.04. I have to admit it took me one day to "get it". But Unity is great and clearly an evolution of the desktop. Usually I am quiet conservative with my working environment and hate changes but with Unity and 12.04 I am now ready for a few years of efficient working on a desktop with future. Everybody who dislikes Unity simply did not invest the time to digest the concept and tweak it for his/her own requirements. Unity is elegant, modern and makes sense. People switching to Mint are only weaken the power of Ubuntu in the market (and make Ballmer and Cook happy).

... Everybody who dislikes Unity simply did not invest the time to digest the concept and tweak it for his/her own requirements. Unity is elegant, modern and makes sense. People switching to Mint are only weaken the power of Ubuntu in the market (and make Ballmer and Cook happy).

Everybody? I have been using Linux since RedHat 5.0, and Ubuntu has been my general desktop choice for Linux since Feisty (7.04). I understand how to tweak my desktop to my liking, but my purpose in using Ubuntu typically means I just want to sit down and do some work and not have to fight to get every little thing to work properly. They have made it so simplified that it is a chore to get it working how I want which is why I felt as if I was fighting it constantly. I never had to do that in the past to such a degree and, having moved to Mint, have not had those issues. Again, this is a matter of choice and Linux comes in enough flavors that I can make that choice. In the Windows ecosystem you either stay with Windows 7 or you move to Windows 8 but you have no lateral choice. I am most certainly not going to stick with some version of Ubuntu that I absolutely hate and have problems with just to spite Microsoft (although it is tempting when you mention Cook lol). Ubuntu standard desktop install has become significantly bloated as well. But I haven't abandoned them entirely - as I stated I still use them for the server edition.

As for the cloud system, it sounds interesting. Is this along the concept of a RAID array using striping/parity across a distributed server network?

Ceph is not at that low a level. It actually sits at the top of the pile, rather than the bottom.

It's more comparable to Isilon. Or Drobo or Windows's ReFS plus an awareness of server nodes, redundancy, and load balancing added in. It still has underlying disks, volumes and file systems, independent of Ceph and largely of no concern to Ceph itself.

I'm actually involved with the development of this thing, kind of interesting to see it mentioned in the news.

This is mainly for people who have thousands of storage machines in a data center, and want to use them all as one distributed, redundant filesystem.

deet is right, it sits at the top of the pile, on top of another file system (XFS usually, btrfs when it's ready). It's not like typical RAID; instead of parity data, you get RAID-1 style mirroring, with several copies of any given chunk of data automatically distributed around the nodes. The whole system is actually aware of how your data center is laid out, and you can give it rules like "every file gets mirrored twice, with each copy going on a different rack" and it magically all works out. That way you never lose a server/rack/row and find out that all copies of a given chunk happened to be there.

You can put different kinds of gateways in front of it, depending on how you use the data. There's one that implements Amazon's S3 protocol so you can be compatible with software that uses that (or sell your own S3 storage). Or you can mount a ceph filesystem on a linux machine and just use it like you would an NFS filesystem.